Notice: As I said in the previous Author's note, the second chapter has been written really as a companion piece by my darling girlfriend. Do tell her what a wonderful writer she is by leaving a review. Thanks!
I'll Never Know.
By Nazorami
Companion to "What If?"
By Ella_marie
The howling of the wind is soft and lonely, swirling about in the darkness, a night lit only by the torchlight in the castle windows and the stars high above my head. I can't see them, tucked away beneath the dark reaching fingers of an old beech tree.
The wind is the only sound, save for the faintest of voices coming from across the grounds, echoing up into the walls of the castle.
I can see you…your robes pressed and neat… your Head Girl badge twinkling faintly on your breast.
Leaning my forehead against the tree trunk, I'm carried away by my thoughts yet again.
My fingers ache to touch you…but I tuck them into fists and force the feeling away.
My mouth is dry, and my chest is aching, heavy with old remorse, and yet equally empty as the wind.
I tried to push them back; those memories…back into the reaches where I keep all the pain. I tried so hard to forget, to act like nothing ever happened.
Every time I see you, I'm reminded that there is something I simply can't do. Yet another on the list of my flaws…I can't forget.
I can't erase the fact that I love you.
Though you don't see me, and most likely have no idea I'm here…I can see you, from my little hiding place. Standing in the very place where it all began, and ended as quickly as a fleeting thought. A bit of whimsy, is all there was between us. No, that's not it. That's all it was to you.
You said you loved me…but then you ran away. Is that what love is? It's something you feel when it's convenient?
No. Not the way I loved you. I would have given you the world, carried you through the dark and lifted you first into the light. I was ready to do what I had to do, because you were beside me.
Shuffling gently, I pocket my frigid hands and watch the Giant Squid slide languidly through the chilly water. The empty wind likes to make a game of tangling my shaggy black hair.
You knew I was afraid…
You knew it wasn't fair…
And yet you stole my strength.
How can I forgive you?
One painful memory after another…it was you who sat and listened to my protests. Did I ask for this? Any of it? At what point did I stand up and say please, would you make my life as miserable as possible? Oh, I'd be eternally grateful…
For as long as I can remember, when it finally boiled over, it was you who would sit and rationalize my rage. As much as I hated your damned logic, I loved you for being the one who listened.
Six years of struggling, six years of coming to grips with that which I never asked for…a fate that I really had no say in edgewise. Do I even care enough to risk it…?
Do I really care enough to die?
When I said those words, your beautiful eyes would glitter with sadness, and it was for that I bit my tongue. For you, I tried so hard not to think about what might happen.
Because I watched it break your heart, I tried to think of brighter things.
You were my brighter day.
I can't explain how many nights I let my mind wander, while I clutched you to my chest and lost myself in the scent of my best friend. The way your warm, heavy body cradled against mine and sought refuge in my arms.
Then, and only then did I want to be a hero.
Godric, how I want to go back to those nights beneath that tree, as the time grew shorter, the battle lingered ever closer, how when I cried you never faltered, to you I wasn't ever weak. I shivered and in my agony you would curl into me and whispered the sweetest words I'd ever heard. I know I never told you, but those words meant everything to me. You kissed away my tears, breathed sweetly on my cheeks and told me the world would get better. That everything would be all right, and you would never leave me. When I wrapped myself around you and tried to disappear, I believed you. I released my grip on reality and got lost in you. How sweet and soft your lips were as they took those little drops of fear and made them go away. The way your eyes glittered like embers and amber, the way your skin was fragrant and welcoming…
Each night you kissed away my tears. Then, one night, you weren't kissing the tears at all.
The first time our lips met, my entire body gave way and sank into you. I gave you everything, my hopes, my fears, my strength; I just stopped thinking, and felt you.
When I look back on the way I felt then, wrapped up in you, I know I could have achieved anything.
But you stole that motivation…you took it from me because you thought it was best.
You tried to tell me that your love for me was powerful, even eternal, but you wouldn't allow yourself to be an obstacle, a distraction, something that could get me hurt…
How ironic, that the pain you inflicted was a hundred times that which you sought to protect me from.
Crying, you kissed me, and despite my pleas and my reasons, you fled. You took my everything, and then, left me with nothing.
The dreams I once escaped to, when the pain and the fear returned, the ones filled with you; your beauty, your wisdom, everything that was you and everything that I wanted to keep more than I wanted anything else in the world… my partner, my lover… and to think that I had hoped for… my wife, my soul's mate, the mother of our children…
My happily ever after…
They're gone. You took them, and fled, and I know there's no hope of them every returning. They're clouded with too much agony, loneliness, betrayal, and regret.
Although I fulfilled my destiny…
The one I wanted by my side most abandon me…and the person who was there with me was someone I couldn't bear to see.
Every time I see you, I feel numb. The empty, heavy, horrible ache was too much to bear. So I fought it. I learned how to turn it off…I learned how to kill an honest response to a broken heart.
The fact that this numbness is what has amounted from our friendship makes me sick.
I look at you, so close, your dark curls blowing about your face…
I miss you…
There's an empty spot inside me no one else can fill…can't you see it? The place that was saved only for you…
I want to feel…but I can't.
I can't erase the fact that I love you…but I can't forget the way you broke my heart.
That place inside is worn and raw and the pain is far too great.
So I turn and walk away.
Push it away, cover it up, let the numbness take over again.
It's disgusting, it's pathetic, and it shouldn't have come to this…but I would rather be numb, than ever cry for you again.
My eyes are worn enough already.
Pausing, I let myself have one more glance. The moonlight dapples your face; shines off your tears.
What would it have been like; I let myself muse, just briefly, if the dreams had all come true?
I don't let myself answer.
Because I know I'll never know.
-->